Art journaling

This fall I started an Art Journaling group that meets once a month. My motives were purely selfish. I wanted to do more art journaling and thought if I had a regular time set aside for it that I would hopefully make more time during the month also. Our first meeting I showed everyone how to make a journal from one sheet of 22"x 30" 120lb watercolour paper like the ones I did here. This month we discussed and worked on backgrounds. There are so many ways to do backgrounds that it was hard to know where to start. After much thought before the meeting, I realized the method I use the most these days is the left over paint method. This just means that any paint left over from a project either my own or a students gets slopped into the art journal to be pondered over later. This method has been great to challenge myself with colour combinations that I wouldn't usually use. I tend to stick to my comfortable warm browns, oranges and copper. 
   So that is how this page started out. Another favourite technique lately is using stencils or masks. On this page I used paint with the stencils but sometimes I use inks or glimmer mists. I also used markers on this with the stencils. Just making some random shapes here and there instead of using the whole stencil. It got me thinking, how else can I use stencils other than the obvious!
   Once the background was complete I thought it had an airy feel to it, hence the 'how to fly' idea. 
   I completed the background during the meeting and left it out on my work table so I could play with it every once in a while over the next few days. So I guess the art journaling group really did work to get me going!
   Do you do some art journaling? What's your favourite background technique? Share it with me in the comments below.

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Happy Creating!

Wendy